Have We Lost the Malaysian Judiciary?

This is a first, a discussion that involves people from different continents of the world! Credits would go to Sdr. Nimalan who is in London, Sdr. Reza in Singapore at present and Sdr. Ainul Aizat in Malaysia for the materials that I am going to use for this blog. Thanks guys!

From my last post on the whole Anwar's trial issue and how the Australian MPs decision to intervene on the matter, there has been a surprisingly large interest on the issue whether our judiciary system can be trusted with this case,seeing the whole political involvement on the case as well as a dozen of possible conspiracy theories around it. I figured that this would be a great opportunity to compile all the people's contribution on this to make up this post! What is happening now is that the general public is doubting the credibility of our judiciary system to handle this case one more time.

What people are questioning now is not whether justice is served for both the parties on this matter but rather that it is deemed to the public that justice is served in accordance to fairness and proper execution of the law. As mentioned by Reza, he brought up the fact that perhaps it is the interest of the public's opinion is what matters the most, especially with the entire mystery of whether or not the decision made in 1998 can even be trusted. He mentioned, quoting a segment in R v. Sussex that it is perhaps it is not about justice is to be done, but rather be seen done. Perhaps it is time for the courts to view their credibility and find a way to fix that image to the general public. No doubt that I feel that there has been much question by the public about the credibility of the courts, and truthfully the media circus surrounding the case is clearly not helping the situation, however wouldn't anyone would feel that the general public is too quick to judge our judiciary system? At this point, we have only seen the start of the whole court procedure and yet, the public have already come up with a verdict of the case. I understand that there are still sentiments of not being able to trust the courts after the whole 1998 issue but as a mature society, shouldn't we view the 2010 case in a separate view that of the 1998 case?

Enough with the Conspiracy Theory, lets get serious

Impartiality is the key word here and to my humble opinion, if we continue to associate the courts with the 1998 case, along side with other issues that we have seen on the judiciary throughout the years, we will never give the Malaysian judiciary a change to improve, let alone satisfy the expectations of the public.

Also, I understand that there are concerns by the general public. As brought forth by Nimalan, he mentioned that there are too many possibilities of biasness, question on credibility as well as lack of logic information that is brought into this case. If the general public continues to witness issues such as the lack of evidence, questions of impartiality of the judges as well as not allowing the defense council to view their own evidences, how is it possible for the public to trust the courts? True in this matter that as long as we have evidence of unprofessional conduct done by courts, the public would continue to think that there is no justice in this country and as long as a person opposes the government, they would never get justice in courts.

However, as highlighted by Aizat, that the basis of the general public's question is merely on the facts that they read in either the newspaper, news and even blogs. None of this would constitute to the credibility of this information and the public shouldn't be too quick to judge the judiciary and there should be more awareness on the role of the public on how the courts are handling this case. Nevertheless, he also concurred that there is a lack of quality in the judiciary system today, as compared to the "good old days" whereby the older generation of judges proved their worth as a judge to the general public by means of how they precede in cases.

In the end, I would think that this would be an opportunity for the judiciary to prove its worth to the public. We now have a high profile case, one that is grabbing the public's attention and it is here where the courts can prove to the public that they still have the credibility to uphold the law in this country. We as Malaysians, we cannot be too quick to judge the courts, and if we continue to try and question or stop the courts from doing their job, how in the world can they show that they have improved? Enough of the public sentiment of previous cases, there is still a saving grace for the Malaysian judiciary as I don't think that all is lost just yet. What I would hope that there is no more "monkeying" around with this matter and the public will be given a clear sight on how the proceedings is made.

2
comments:

Why must this particular trial be the opportunity for the judiciary to prove their credibility? They have a whole long list of political trial that they could have proved their credibility but all ended up only makes the judiciary looks more foolish than before. They had their chance already.

What if this trial again failed to improve the judiciary's credibility? As a law student, you should bear in mind that a decision made by a kangaroo court also carry similar authority as an impartial court would have that a court decision is final and cannot be questioned. This is the inherent power confered to the court by our Constitution. And it's this power that we do not want to see it abused by a kangaroo court.

So my question here is are you willing to take another risk to allow the tainted judiciary to further mar the sanctity of our legal justice system if this time they again failed to proved their creditworthiness? Prevention is better than cure my dear learned friend.

How often do you believe the idea that an ex-convict will never commit criminal act again?

You as a law student should also know that it is the court duty to exercise their duty and to do whatever it takes to be impartial for the interest of justice and the integrity of the justice system even it requires them to dismiss themself from a hearing if he/she has been indicted to have been in conflict of interest at the time of the hearing. Did the current trial exert to such practise? Answer is no.

@ultraman i do understand that on a logical scale the credibility of the courts should not be judged by a single case and should be reviewed by their performance of cases to come. However as we see today, the attention of the public now focuses on this case in particular and since we have the public's eye on the matter, might as well we use this opportunity to prove the court's worth.

As to your question, it is to my humble opinion that we should not be too quick to "jump the gun" and assume that the judiciary would not do a good job this time simply of their past record. Bear in mind that this would be the first high profile case we have since the change of a prime minister and more importantly, since the events of March 8th, a supposed sign of a maturing Malaysia. Perhaps if we allow the whole case to go through, we might see a change.

Secondly, I absolutely agree that the powers of a court that misuses the power given to them by the Parliament would have equal strength that of an impartial court. However, as mentioned by you, is still a speculative "what if".

Finally, I also agree to the fact on the issue of conflict of interest, however it must take a mere "conspiracy theory" in order to actually show a COI for one to dismiss a judge from a case.